Here where the forces elemental circle me, caress me and touch my city-scattered parts to a whole; Here on the mount, “neath a blue-burnished heaven and a passionate luring sun, where the war of the wind with the leaves mocks at the strength we have hid; Here is the lesson to learn, here is the Teacher eternal, the war-lord of Space, the parent of hate and of love. Do I not hate with a love that's intense? Is not my soul strengthened in battle? My brain is a duel of opposing forces, and the thing that I war against is more precious to me than the tickle of grass or the ease that brings degradation.
War! War!—bring me helmet and shield and the sword of the spirit; the great weaponed SELF that I seek and that forever seeks me Is shut in a tower of gold o‘ergrown with weeds and the rank, poisonous fungi of outworn selves, And here, gripped in these forces elemental, I make a passionate compact with my dumb, brutish instincts To assail every live-dead thing that hinders my march to that tower of gold, o‘ergrown, untended, unkenned; And there in the winds, in a fury of battle, deliver the SELF in the light of the sun— SELF that shall live to its uttermost transfigured instinct, SELF that am God of all gods.
Publication History
The Shadow-Eater [1915/17 and 1923]
1923 Edition Text Changes
- caress me and > caress me ⁋ And
- luring sun, where > luring sun, ⁋ Where
- Teacher eternal, the war-lord > Teacher eternal, ⁋ The war-lord
- opposing forces, and the > opposing forces, ⁋ And the
- the spirit; the great > the spirit; ⁋ The great
- SELF > Self [all instances]
- forces elemental, I make > forces elemental, ⁋ I make
- tower of gold, o’ergrown > tower of gold, ⁋ O’ergrown